So basically the cost of living in IL the last two decades has grown into such a disadvantageous situation you can’t find anyone worth a shit to produce a radio show for your peasant wages.

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Let's be honest here. We've all heard these producers crack a mic and speak. All of them are pretty much dumb asses.

Working 20 hours a week, where you're main job is answering the phone, it ain't that bad. They should be happy with it. It's an easy job. They should quit their bitching. Teachers making 40k have a right to bitch. Cops making 60k have a right to bitch. Not these idiots.

ya i have read stories from the old CFMB where Score producers would post on the forums how low the pay was and they were just trying to squeez thru life with that salary. All for the dream of one day getting a shot on the air as a Score host.

Must be hard for a lot of these guys to raise a family like this. It's not like theyre in their 20s anymore.

The only producers that got paid from what I remember were Murph's. He always got top ratings and they got bonus's. better than the other producers from other shows. But they use to say that bonus payment came with workplace abusive behavior from Murph himself.

There was a ex murph producer on here who use to say that murph use to chide him when the producer had the guts to complain with something like 'you weren't complaining much after you received that bonus were you?'.

Score producers use to be cool back in the day before the score was on the internet. I would call in from the west coast and the producer use to pick up the phone and I would ask him if I could just be put on hold to listen to North/Jigs , Heavy Fuel Crew, or Murph/Hood and they would be like ya no problem. Even later they use to just put me on hold no questions asked. Could just put the speaker on the phone and listen for an hour like I was back listening to the radio in chicago.

Tanihill is the exception. I think he's got above average smarts. And he can be funny at times. And he's not one of those guys that has to chime in all the time. He picks his spots. Unlike Goff, who basically became the 3rd host with B&B. That fucker talked all the time. Probably more then Boers in the last 2 years of that show.

maybe some of these producers come from rich families. they don't need to worry about finances. at least they're doing what they love.

I don't think so. Zawaski, Rhodes, Goff, drinky did not come from rich families. And I don't think most of the other SCORE producers come from rich families.

They're all meatballs that come from blue collar families.

They're just like the callers that Bernstein hates. So these producers hate blue collar meatballs. Because they all have to be like Bernstein.

Basically these producers are admitting that they hate themselves. Yet they don't realize that. That's how stupid they are.

maybe they were just young and naive when they started and now are getting hit with a dose of brutal reality.

nobody leaves these radio gigs. especially these days when it's a dying media. look at Bernstein. he got demoted but was smart enough to realize not to raise a ruckus. because if he did, and they got rid of him, where does he go?

Maybe they hate America.

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'Your AT&T Universal Card has arrived'? Oh God, Kick-fucking-ass, I got a Master Card! I don't believe it, man. Life is kinda cool sometimes.

Hawaii You, Mac also gave his producers etc. ratings bonuses.

As for sports talk producers in general it really doesn't surprise me at all that many are not promising broadcasters and they do not make a ton. In the big world (even if shrinking) of broadcast production sports talk is a niche.

So if you aspire to be a broadcast producer and go to school or whatever you are likely to go to something other than sports if you are the cream of the crop. That leaves the average to lower level and/or the people like us here that happen to aspire to radio and are sports nerds.

So really it is no surprise many do not make a jump to on air. It is easier to see why the serious student that showed promise ended up at Syracuse and took the Parkins route rather than the Shep and Zawaski one.

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Elections have consequences.

You hear almost no real production out of Score producers.

There are no new, creative bits. There are few hard get interviews. There are no sound drops. There's no funny pre recorded material. All they do is answer calls and highlight the time to take a break. Producers of the past earned air time. Tannehill is the exception in this group.

So, when they lament their pay, they should be asking themselves what kind of value added they bring above anyone else in the industry. They are, almost to a person, 20 hour per week employees. Now, someone with initiative uses that paycheck and all that free time as a base to start something bigger. Even a hard working person with less vision would pick up another job to double their pay. Hell, you could get off a shift as score producer and make some pretty good money as a loop waiter or bartender.

This is another result of the cancerous Bernstein era of the Score. Pre Bernstein era all of the shows had great production value. Most of those producers made something of themselves in the industry (Jesse, Hood, Meatpants, etc.). Bernstein prided himself on taking the Krusty the Clown route to radio of walking in as the show started and not working a minute after it ended. His producers stopped producing. The station sycophants followed their lead.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Right GD. Chicken or egg who knows but the producers get the pay they deserve there or the pay there gets the producers they deserve.

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Elections have consequences.

How far away from the score studios do you have to live in order to afford a lower middle class life on 20 hours a week?

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IDK but I think Shep and Zawawski live out toward Channahon and Coal City. Either you have a spouse/partner help you make your dream or you work a second or whatever. 40k a year can be doable but you don't get a Range Rover that is for sure.

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Elections have consequences.

The smart ones got out when they were young. When you've got a wife , kids, kid on the the way, priorities change. Also off air Murph no gouda.

I don't want it to be lost that the Score pay for full time producers is unconscionably low.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Yeah agree. I might have missed it did you guys get some hard numbers? Like from some Enteron filing data etc?

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Elections have consequences.

I think Rhodes teaches at the prestigious Illinois Media School. Not sure about the others.

The basic career path for producers was either on air or asst/program director. Mitch Rosen was Edie Schwartz's producer; a few of the old Score producers went that way as well. With radio changing, not clear of that path is available anymore.

I think Golddust is another exception too. He's such a fucking sports idiot though it's tough to look past his other 'contributions'

WSCR might be missing an opportunity here, do more solo shows with still poorly paid producers chiming in and actually producing. Instead of the well-paid but mostly useless sidekick hosts.

Shep is the new drinky at the SCORE. He's the producer first off the bench to pick up shifts. Like drinky, he's not very well spoken or intelligent. They both have that nasally midwestern accent. Shep's is much worse then drinky's. I've tried to tell Shep to lose that damn accent but he won't listen to me. As a broadcaster, you really should try to lose it. It's annoying.

Unlike drinky, Shep really, really, really loves sports. All sports. And knows a lot of useless sports trivia and shit like that.

I always thought drinky just loved his Cubbies and really didn't give a shit about any other sport or team in Chicago. And it came across because he didn't do a good job covering those other teams when he would get shows.

They should learn to code

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Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

I don't think it is. I'm guessing 40k is what the tenured full timers get.
40k for 20 hours a week is a lot of money in my mind.

Especially for the ease of the job. Producers will tell you it's a tough job. Cuz everybody likes to tell you their job is tough. But they know it's not. It requires no physical labor and no intelligence to do the job. To me, that's an easy job.

Put down the crack pipe whistler.

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I think 20k a year for an easy 20hr a week job isn't horrible. Especially with what these guys seemingly churn out. I imagine a few of them have to be hustlers. picking up extra money for on air gigs they might get, doing other media work like writing, beat reporting, doing highschool sports announcing, and teaching at community colleges.

it seems to me that is what larry did to get himself a better gig (at least one where he got to come to the table and negotiate himself)

It's gotta be more than 20k. These producers have houses and kids. They couldn't survive on 20k.

That's why my guess is 40k.

I know these producers don't want to hear it. But it's a job that requires no skill. That's why the pay is low.

Christ, drinky did it for 15 years. And his brain cells had already been destroyed by booze when he took the job. So if drinky can do it, any idiot can do it.

I recall last decade it was pretty bad still. Maybe nowadays it's better but I'm thinking 28/29K.

Don't understand the hate for these guys. They know what the job pays when they get into it. I think they do it more for love of sports and sports radio and chasing the dream.

Some have got out and did other things with their careers. Some hang on. Just like any other job.

Obviously it's about chasing the dream initially.

But guys like Zawaski and Rhodes realize it ain't gonna happen at this point. They probably both realized it 5 or 6 years ago. It's cool if they want to keep doing it. I don't care. They can do whatever the fuck they want. Just realize that this is gonna be your pay grade for life. And don't bitch about it. But I know it's tough at their ages to do something new.

While the pay is low, they have a comfort level and they have a job that really doesn't have any pressure. Pressure means when you fuck something up it costs the company. And there is hell to pay for you. They really can't do anything that bad to cost the company. They answer phones and play drops. If you fuck that up, it's no big deal. The hosts make the fuck ups into jokes which is content for the show. And when the producers say something stupid on the air, the hosts make fun of that. And the listeners laugh at the dumb producer. So that turns out to be good content.

In other words, producers being dumb turns into good radio. Cuz we all get to laugh at them as listeners.

Look at the laughs B&B listeners had for years at the stupidity of drinky and Goff.

Somebody who's been around for a decade has got to pull more down than $40k. I was thinking like $60k for the most senior producer. Also, unless it's in some god awful area or they don't have a mortgage, I don't think anyone is supporting kids and owning a home while making $40k a year.

probably right but we're talking about a dying medium which is radio. Thats why I think salary may be more stagnant or declining due to the state of the industry.